It results from a petition by the NFA Trade and Collectors Association … why they petitioned, I cannot explain. Perhaps they counted upon the agency to be reasonable, which is never a good idea. Even if the agency is reasonable, the regs must clear the Office of Management and Budget, which is the President’s right arm in regulatory matters.

I’d really like to see the original petition. Trying to reason with bureaucrats is never a good idea. At best, they were hoodwinked by people who know how to play this game better than they do. There’s a lot of accusations floating around that they were complicit in a set up.

I heard them interviewing someone from the NRA Annual Meeting this year on Cam and Co. At least I think it was them. I know they are a group that represents (or is supposed to represent) owners of NFA items. Maybe I’m confusing them with another group.

The issue is that this group, does NOT represent NFA owners at large, just the old white elitist – I’ve got mine – attitude. They’re the machine gun owners that would look down on you for ‘only’ being able to afford a $3,000 full auto MAC.

I could tell the first time I saw this group’s page, they do not represent the majority of NFA owners… So big surprise they kicked the hornets nest and now there are rule changes.

Per the discussion on their facebook page, someone posting in an official capacity asserted that he believed that the majority of their MGs would retain value in the event that the Hughes amendment is reversed.

If they really are the “we have fancy and expensive machineguns” group, then that might actually be true: even in the event that the Hughes amendment is repealed (or even the entire NFA), I doubt that WWII issued guns will drop in price much.

I was at SHOT three years ago and one of the guys at the ATF booth said there was internal pressure mounting to slow the use of trusts. It just represented a ton of work for them because they had to review them all. He said they had been talking about getting rid of CLEO sign-offs because they thought the majority of trusts resulted from CLEO issues. I told him I’d still use the trust because of the multi-person ownership. Nobody was talking about what we are seeing here, though.

So I think something was coming one way or the other on trusts in order to reduce their use or minimize the work required to handle them. It just so happens that Team Obama got their mittens into it and had some fun along the way. The good ideas (reviewing a trust once and not again unless structural changes are made; dumping CLEO; and making clear their view on constructive possession by lawful co-habitants) just got tossed.

So much of the NFA work is not required by law, antiquated or based on bad info. Some day maybe we can fix it…

Of course the NFATCA would be against changes to the NFA. Many machine gun owners bought them as an investment. 922(o) is the best thing to ever happen to them. If that particular law were struck down, machine guns would lose 90% of their value immediately.
It follows then, that anything that makes ownership of NFA items more difficult increases their value.

It almost sounds like the NFATCA thinks that the only reason that people opt for trusts/corps is the lack of fingerprints/photos/CLEO approval.

Realistically, CLEO signatures mean nothing, and are just burdensome. Given that my dealer is likely to run a PICS check anyway when I come to pick them up, the FBI background check process is pretty much just a bunch of burdensome nonsense too.

The real benefit of trusts/corps is that they allow for possession by more than one actual person.

Still, it sounds like NFATCA tried to throw trusts/corps under the bus in exchange for the elimination of the CLEO sign off.

The fact that there is a group who represents “NFA owners rights” is in itself a curious application of the term “rights” as the existence and continuance of the NFA as a whole infringes on all gun owners’ rights. Some “rights” can be better protected than others if the interests of those who own NFA items intersect with those of the feds. Despicable. I had questioned this group from the first time I heard them on Cam and Co.